Everything You Need to Know about the Power Platform – August 2020

This month felt like a slow month but there are a couple of hidden gems. The last couple I have had new functions that excited me to share or other major announcements. My assumption is since we are the month before Microsoft Ignite, they are sitting on things. So fingers crossed it is cool stuff. For this month I did find a few neat things with my favorite being the ability to run flows from Teams messages and when a SharePoint column is modified. ?

Project Oakdale – Deep dive on the data model

Last month we talked about how Teams is becoming the center of the Power Platform universe. It is a fact, it will happen. So as part of getting ready while we wait for the announcement you can study up. To help, Marc at Microsoft put together a detailed breakdown of what will come in the new version of the Common Data Service for Teams vs. the features of what exists with Common Data Service today. Get reading you just should know this stuff and be excited about it.

Power BI Report Server release delayed until October

Long story short? Report Server is being delayed so they do not have to release a half-baked version in September and then you are forced to wait till January for a proper version. I commend Microsoft for saying pushing the date was better than hitting an arbitrary date with bad code. Good call guys and gals! More details are here but really it just says wait till October.

Trigger flows from Teams messages

Some Teams awesomeness you can use now was mentioned in this full breakdown of new Teams functionality. There is a new trigger inflow “For a selected message” where a user can select a message in the Teams desktop or web client and then run a flow. When the flow triggers you can even show them an Adaptive Card to prompt them for input. Folks this is a game-changer for Teams centric companies allowing them to act on all those messages. I did a video on Microsoft Teams To Do Lists that will walk you through creating this new functionality. Love it!

Technical things you should know:

Seven new connectors added for the Power Platform – I will be honest I have never heard of any of them so I have no color. Still good to read through them and learn something new.

Portals get web API support – Portals are interesting. I still haven’t used them for a real project but they continue to pique my interest and my customer’s interest. API support is just another feather in their cap.

Run a flow when a SharePoint column is modified – This is awesome and long overdue! The ability to have your flow trigger only when a watched column changes is going to be super helpful.

UI flows get Delay, Command-line arguments, Copy and Paste, and Variables – Make sure if you haven’t at least peaked at UI flows that you do. There is a lot of power in Robotic Process Automate (RPA).